Security

US government warns iOS users their devices may be in danger
Apple customers are being warned by computer security experts, including the United States government's own cyber squad, to watch out for a new bug affecting iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad. The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or US-CERT, said Thursday that users of mobile phones and tablets running Apple’s latest iOS software should be careful of what they click. [...]
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California police spent $45mn on spy gear with little oversight
Police departments across California spent more than $45 million on surveillance equipment over the course of a decade with little to no legislative or public oversight - and without the public's knowledge, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU report, titled 'Making Smart Decisions about Surveillance: A Guide for Communities,' reveals how California law enforcement took adv [...]
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Gaza cut off: Israel closes border crossings indefinitely
Israel has said it's shutting the only two operating Gaza border crossings indefinitely. This comes a day after a projectile hit Israel from the strip, but caused no damage. Border closures threaten to isolate already devastated Gaza completely. The move will affect both the Kerem Shalom and Erez border crossings, Haartez reported, quoting Israel’s defense establishment. [...]
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Donbass self-proclaimed republics vote to elect leaders, MPs
The self-proclaimed people'€™s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk are electing their leaders and MPs. The Kiev government has started criminal proceedings against elections in the southeast despite them being sanctioned by the Minsk peace deal. As soon as the polling stations opened at 8 am on Sunday morning, high voter activity was noted in both the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. [...]
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Albuquerque police face sweeping reforms after excessive force allegations
The beleaguered Albuquerque Police Department in New Mexico has reached a deal with the Department of Justice to overhaul many of its practices. The reforms come amid protests fueled by the department fatally shooting nearly 30 people in four years. Sweeping in scope, the reforms involve new training and recruitment procedures and field supervision of officers, and will require the department t [...]
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Lavrov: Russia never questioned Ukraine’s right for partnership with EU
Moscow never put Kiev's right to develop closer ties with the EU into doubt, it only wanted to escape risks that Ukraine's economic integration into the European Union might have brought about, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. “I stress this: we never questioned Ukraine’s right to develop partnership with the EU,” Lavrov told the Verdens Gang (VG) Norwegian newspaper, when he [...]
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Well-‘red’: MI5 spied on prominent academics ‘for decades’, secret docs show
British intelligence services, including MI5, secretly spied on a number of prominent academics with socialist leanings "for decades," including Oxbridge dons Christopher Hill and Eric Hobsbawm, secret files disclosed on Friday show. The historians were among a number academics at the UK’s top universities who were placed under rigorous surveillance by the security services after officers b [...]
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Washington concealed US troops exposure to chemical weapons in Iraq – intel docs
American soldiers discovered more than 4,990 chemical munitions in Iraq, according to Iraqi and US officials and previously classified intelligence documents, which may now be in the hands of Islamic State militants. For much of the duration of the Iraq War, which saw US soldiers open a military invasion against the Ba’athist country in March 2003 amid tremendous international outcry, US forc [...]
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War-torn Donetsk airport reminds of Chernobyl wasteland (PHOTOS, VIDEO)
Haunting images taken at the shelled Donetsk airport recall the nuclear ghost towns of Chernobyl and Pripyat. After half a year of fighting in eastern Ukraine, the once regional airline hub has now been abandoned and left in ruins. [...]
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“Almost lynching”: Radicals attack Ukrainian officials, throw into trash bins
As President Petro Poroshenko signed the lustration law, the trash dumping of lawmakers in Ukraine is gaining momentum. The General Prosecutor warned that there is a thin line between the so-called "trash lustration" and lynching. Poroshenko signed the law that establishes the legal framework for checking government officials linked to the rule of ousted President Yanukovich. [...]
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Ebola scare: LaGuardia on strike, 58% of Americans want to ban flights from W. Africa
Airplane cabin cleaning crews at New York's LaGuardia International Airport began a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, citing, in part, possible exposure to the Ebola virus. Meanwhile, a poll found most Americans want flights banned from Ebola-ravaged areas. Around 200 Air Serv employees who work on domestic flights to LaGuardia began their strike on Wednesday evening. [...]
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Terrorists among us: FBI starts anti-jihadist neighborhood informer campaign
The FBI counter-terrorism division is calling on to Americans to report on fellow citizens engaged in suspicious activities to help identify possible terrorists, in the first place those connected to terrorist activities overseas. In a statement published by the FBI on Tuesday, assistant director of the counter-terrorism division Michael Steinbach said the Bureau needs “the public's assistanc [...]
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“Who the f**k authorized this?” Obama’s chief of staff cursed Panetta over CIA torture probe
Former CIA Director Leon Panetta says that he was cursed at by President Barack Obama's former chief of staff after he agreed to cooperate with the Senate's investigation into his agency's torture tactics in the wake of 9/11. In passages taken from his new book and published online bythe Intercept, Panetta explains the event that triggered the outburst, which flowed from the former chief of sta [...]
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Fighting ISIS: $1.1bn already spent, “30 years of war” to come
As the Pentagon reports spending of over $1 billion on bombing ISIS in Iraq and Syria, ex-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the fight against the Islamist movement may take as long as 30 years. Since mid-June, when militants from the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, or ISIL) launched their lightning offensive in Iraq, the Pentagon has spent $1.1 billion on fighting the militia, US Central C [...]
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Most recent ISIS munitions US-made during Iraq occupation – study
An analysis of cartridges used by Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria shows that their newest ammunition is of American origin. China and the Soviet Union were identified as the biggest sources of munitions, but with bullets made 25 years ago. The Conflict Armament Research (CAR) group analyzed the origin of some 1,700 small-caliber cartridges collected from areas in Syria and Iran where [...]
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Battleground America: US Army surplus even going to coroners as militarization rampant
The Pentagon's 1033 Program, which is militarizing state and local police forces with everything from high-powered firearms to armored vehicles, is also giving weapons to officials who have no law enforcement functions. The practice is leading watchdogs and even some US government officials to question why the US military is so desperate to unload its cache of used military hardware that it is [...]
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Britains’ top police chief calls for more surveillance of UK web users to protect national security
The UK's top law enforcement officer says Britons must be prepared to sacrifice their freedoms online if they want to be protected from terrorists and cyber criminals. This includes giving authorities access to private email and social media contents. Speaking to The Guardian, the director general of the National Crime Agency (NCA), Keith Bristow, warned that the UK’s biggest threats are beco [...]
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9/11 hijackers tested airport security before attacks, authorities ignored warnings
Months before they participated in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Al-Qaeda operatives were spotted and approached at a Boston airport, according to a new report, but concerns raised at the time were ignored by authorities. The New York Post reported on Sunday this week that newly unveiled court papers show for the first time that at least three eyewitnesses reported observing suspici [...]
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“Biden tries to distance US from the mess in the Mideast”
Vice President Joe Biden, by blaming Washington's allies for the spread of IS in Iraq and Syria, attempted to distance the US from the mess that is emerging in the Middle East, former MI5 agent Annie Machon told RT. Addressing students at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University, Joe Biden accused Turkey and the Gulf States of being unscrupulous in their [...]
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